I obviously took The Goat out for today's adventures in bicycle commuting. I'd thought of asking if I could use my wife's Townie 3 Speed, because it really is built from the factory for things like commuting around for short distances, but I figured being caught waiting for the bus at the already-dicey 10th and Main intersection with a "girl's bike" (a step-through frame) would probably be a Bad Ideatm. It is a sweeeeet bike, though. It would make a bad-ass Xtracycle, as it's already got a relatively long wheelbase and cruiser lines. While we were at the shop yesterday dropping my bike off, my wife picked up a bell for her Townie (ding ding!) and scored us a couple of Polar Bottle insulated water bottles. She rocks! We're waiting for her cardiologist to give her clearance to get back on the bike. The docs have been telling her to take it easy lately.

Alas, The Goat came out of semi-retirement last night for a quick grocery shake-down run, complete with lots of riding through grass, hopping of curbs and other delightful stuff that would put the hurt on any road bike. This morning was a bit of a hammerfest into the headwind. I left later than I should have but made it to the bus stop on time.

Hard telling which bus I'll end up taking home tonight. 87th street is tolerable on the road bike because I can get scooting and hold onto something resembling 30 MPH for most of the duration that I'm forced to use that section of road. On the MTB? No way. I think I may take the L(oser) bus home and ride up Quivira. Ugh. At least it's not the D(readed) bus.

2 comments:

"They" need to standardize those derailleur hangers. I had to have one ordered for my mountain bike when I busted that one. They're hard to get, proprietary, and incredibly overpriced -- $20 or so for a little metal tab. What the hell?

Thank goodness for backup bikes. I'm still using my old mountain bike as a commuter, even though conditions are good enough for the road bike. Mostly because I get paranoid leaving my good bike laying around, and this way I can use normal shoes. And since I have a short commute, the extra efficiency isn't a requirement.

We interrupt MS150 Training on the Sirrus to interject a day of commuting on the hybridized Alpine Monitor Pass!

Don't feel too bad Noah. Some of us have taken a "Road bike Sabbatical" today as well. The Bayou City Art Festival is coming to town and they are set up in the Memorial Park Picnic Area/Crit Course so it's unusable to bike traffic for the rest of the week.

Privacy Policy

This site is driven by software that uses third-party cookies from Google (Blogger, AdSense, Feedburner and their associates.) Cookies are small pieces of non-executable data stored by your web browser, often for the purpose of storing preferences or data from previous visits to a site. No individual user is directly tracked by this or any other means, but I do use the aggregate data for statistics purposes.

By leaving a link or e-mail address in my comments (including your blogger profile or website URL), you acknowledge that the published comment and associated links will be available to the public and that they will likely be clicked on.

Sponsors

RSS Feed

Contact me!

If you'd like to contact me outside the comments, leave a message and I'll respond. Oh yeah, if you're going to send me a URL, ask me if you can send me one first, then send it when I reply. If not, my spam troll will eat your fingers for breakfast.